


Sometimes Is Never Quite Enough

by Sohotthateveryonedied



Category: Batman (Comics), Robin (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Bad Parent Jack Drake, Bad Parenting, Child Neglect, Dana Winters-Drake is the mom Tim deserved okay I love her so much, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Scars, She's Just Trying Her Best, he can choke, takes place the night Jack made Tim quit being Robin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-10
Updated: 2020-04-10
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:34:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23583175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sohotthateveryonedied/pseuds/Sohotthateveryonedied
Summary: Tim can’t help but appreciate the irony here. Robin training was what made him get so good at lying, and now he’s using it to lie about how he was forced to quit being Robin. Somewhere, the ghost of Jason Todd is laughing at him.
Comments: 19
Kudos: 305





	Sometimes Is Never Quite Enough

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from "Perfect" by Alanis Morissette because I've always thought that song summed up Tim's relationship with his parents and yeah. Jack Drake sucks, what else is new.

By the time Tim and his dad get home, dinner has been cold for hours. Tim’s eyes feel stiff and scratchy in their sockets from being awake for so long. Now that he thinks about it, how long has it been since he last slept? It feels like forever since he’s been able to sleep soundly through the night without dread of Robin’s murderous legacy plaguing his dreams.  
  
At least he won’t have to worry about that anymore.  
  
Tim idly listens to Dana asking Dad what took them so long as Tim pulls off his jacket and hangs it in the front closet. He doesn’t dare meet his dad’s eyes when he edges past him toward the sink, afraid of being turned to stone on the spot. He swears Dad’s hands left imprints on the steering wheel on the drive home.  
  
Tim fills up a glass of water from the Brita filter and feels an elbow nudge his side. “So?” Dana asks in a whisper as she puts their lasagna in the microwave to nuke. Dad’s already left the room; he must be stashing his gun back in whatever hiding place he found it. “How’d it go?”  
  
Tim’s brain must be made of mac and cheese because Dana could be speaking in French for all he knows. He needs sleep. “What?”  
  
“You and your dad had a talk, right? I’m hoping this means you two have finally worked things out.”  
  
“Oh, yeah. For sure.” Tim can’t help but appreciate the irony here. Robin training was what made him get so good at lying, and now he’s using it to lie about how he was forced to quit being Robin. Somewhere, the ghost of Jason Todd is laughing at him.  
  
“That’s good to hear. And you know, I should probably warn you,” Dana continues, eyes darting back to her and Jack’s bedroom. “Your dad...got a little carried away earlier. I told him not to invade your privacy, but...well, you know how he is.”  
  
Oh. She’s talking about his room being invaded like an autopsied carcass. “I already know about that.” He kind of figured as much after his dad mentioned finding his stash of Robin gear. Tim is dreading going in there and finding his secrets lying around in the open like free samples in a mall food court. Tim has never been more grateful than at this moment that he isn’t like most teenage boys. _That_ would have been more embarrassment than he can handle.  
  
“I’m sorry,” Dana says, and her eyes shine with such genuine remorse that Tim finds he can’t summon the will to be mad at her. “I’ll help you reorganize it tomorrow, if you want? I don’t have many appointments scheduled, so if you want we can pick up some new shelving while we’re at it. Total makeover.” Her encouraging smile is only half there, but it’s fifty percent more than Tim can say for his own face.  
  
“It’s fine,” he says, “I can handle it.”   
  
That’s when his dad comes stomping back in, and Dana returns her focus to the food. Tim figures he’s pushed his dad’s limits more than enough tonight and doesn’t try to get out of dinner even though every bite feels like he’s choking down cardboard—and not because of Dana’s cooking. Tim’s stomach is a mess of nerves and he doesn’t tear his eyes away from his own plate the whole time.  
  
Every once in a while he’ll catch a sympathetic glance from Dana, who can clearly tell that something is amiss from her seat in the middle of the ice wall between them. Still, she doesn’t pry, and Tim appreciates her for it.  
  
After dinner Tim excuses himself and slips away upstairs to his bedroom, feet dragging on the carpet as he preemptively mourns what awaits him. But Tim knows he dug his own grave with this one. He’s the one who lied for years and thought he could get away with having two lives at the same time without it all falling apart.  
  
If Tim were as smart as everyone says he is, he never would have stayed on as Robin for as long as he did. He should have done his job and nothing more. He should have saved Batman like he planned, gotten him back on his feet, and then helped Bruce find a new candidate for the job. Someone who didn’t have a perfectly good family waiting back home for him.  
  
Tim arrives at his bedroom door and grimaces. Looks like Dad thought it was necessary to confiscate Tim’s doorknob as well—the cherry on top of a perfect night. Tim probably deserves that. The door is already ajar, so Tim pushes it open the rest of the way with his sneaker and steps inside. His jaw drops at the sight before him.  
  
The place is a disaster. Posters are torn from the walls, his alphabetized magazines have been dumped carelessly on the floor, and his mattress is overturned. Slowly Tim steps inside, careful not to step on anything valuable. One of his first edition Flash comics lies on the ground and Tim _knows_ he’ll never get those wrinkles out.  
  
There’s the telltale creak of a footstep behind him. Tim turns to find Jack coming up the hallway like a proud drill sergeant, admiring his work. “Dad,” Tim says, horrified, “what the _hell_ did you do to my room?”  
  
Jack’s eyebrows narrow. “Hey now, you don’t _get_ to be upset about this.”  
  
“Dad, I—”  
  
“You just count yourself lucky that I had the good sense to dig up your little secret before that Wayne bastard got you killed.”  
  
Tim is smart. He knows full well that now isn’t the time to talk back. After all, _he’s_ the one in the wrong here, not his dad. And yet… “Bruce would never have let me get hurt if he could help it. We’re partners. We have each other’s backs.” At least, they did. Everything’s in the past tense now.  
  
Jack doesn’t seem to care. “Until I can trust you not to be running around on rooftops and pummeling criminals behind my back, you can kiss your freedom goodbye. Two months should do it.”   
  
“But Dad, I—”  
  
“Another word from you and I’ll double it.” Tim shuts his mouth and hates the pleased look on his dad’s face. Hammer sufficiently dropped, Jack goes off down the hall and disappears downstairs.  
  
“Great,” Tim mutters, kicking a once pristine action figure. “First time I’ve ever been grounded for _helping_ people.”   
  
He sets about cleaning his torn-apart room since it’s not like he has anything else to do tonight. Looks like his nights are going to be pretty empty from now on. He should forward Bruce that file about the Russian gang Tim was going to target next week. And probably a few other leads he had set aside for a rainy day.   
  
Tim picks up his books and mourns his perfectly arranged bookshelf; arranged by author name and then by personal preference within that category. It’s going to take hours to fix this, let alone the rest of his room. He finds his war journals lying open on the floor and a salty mixture of embarrassment and rage wells in the back of his throat.  
  
Jack read his _journals._ He read page after page of Tim’s darkest secrets—secrets that were kept in his Robin cubby for a _reason._ Yes, he had to hide them because they would rat out every detail about the bat-family that anyone would ever want to know, but most of all, he wanted them hidden away because these are _personal._  
  
These notebooks are compilations of Tim’s thoughts and feelings spilled out onto lines paper. They’re where he recounted his excitement after every success and where he mourned every loss. These journals are a doorway into Tim’s soul, and his dad just... _took_ them from him. Like he didn’t even care. Like Tim’s privacy didn’t matter.   
  
But Tim reminds himself that he has _no right to complain._ He’s the one who broke the rules and thought he could get away with it. Dad was right—Tim was _selfish_ in hiding Robin from him. It was selfish for him to keep secrets from the man who is trying his best to be a good father, who tries every damn day to set a good example, even when he sometimes misses the mark.  
  
So what if Tim grew up lonely enough that he used to talk to the paintings on the walls of his house and pretend they were people, just so he would feel a little less alone? So what if Tim grew up seeing nannies and housekeepers more often than his own parents? So _what_ if Tim and Jack stood side by side at Janet’s funeral, and it didn’t even occur to Jack to comfort his son as he watched his mother’s coffin sink into the ground?  
  
That doesn’t excuse Tim’s selfishness. It was wrong for him to sneak behind his father’s back, and even more wrong that he kept the happiest part of his life a secret for so long. And it’s _especially_ wrong that right now, even after everything that’s happened, all Tim wants to do is jump out the window and run back to Wayne Manor.  
  
Some lousy son he is.  
  
Tim eventually gets tired of cleaning and saves the rest to be dealt with tomorrow. After all, he doubts Jack will be letting him out of his sight for the next few weeks. It’s a miracle his dad hasn’t made him wear an ankle bracelet at this point.  
  
Tim shucks off his shirt and tosses it into the hamper. He knows that tomorrow won’t solve his problems even a little bit, but Tim is completely wiped out from the day he’s had and he just wants it to be over with. He retrieves his pillow from the other end of his room with a sigh.  
  
The door opens behind him. Thanks a lot, missing doorknob. “I forgot to tell you,” Jack says. “I’m going to be confiscating your phone until I know I can trust you with it, so—” He stops abruptly and Tim rolls his eyes.  
  
“I know you took away my doorknob and all, but could you at least knock first before barging into my room?” His dad says nothing, so Tim turns around to find Jack staring at him like he’s come face to face with an alien. “What?”  
  
Jack’s eyes are blown wide, his stare locked on Tim’s chest, and only then does it occur to Tim his fatal mistake. It’s his own fault: He’s emotionally exhausted from all that’s happened today, and it’s made him careless. Usually he’s more discreet around Dad and Dana, but now that all of his secrets are out in the open, he forgot that there are some things he might want to keep to himself.   
  
Jack’s eyes rake over the scars covering his son’s torso: a stab wound on his hip, bullet clusters on his other side, knife slashes crossing over his abs like an abstract painting. Tim can’t see his own back, but he knows it’s just as bad. Memories of times when he was burned, beaten, stabbed, shot, and impaled. Every scar has a story—each is a lasting remnant of his greatest triumphs and defeats—but after a while they all tend to blur together.  
  
“Dad, it’s not—”  
  
“I should have killed him when I had the chance.”  
  
“It’s not Bruce’s fault. I told you, it was _my_ decision to get involved from the start. Bruce didn’t even want me doing it at the time.”  
  
“Then why did you?” Jack demands. “Why would you join up with a bat psycho who didn’t even _want you_ in the first place?”  
  
“Because it’s not like it would have been the first time!”  
  
“You shut your mouth,” Jack warns, raising his hand, and for a split second Tim worries his dad is going to hit him before he clenches his teeth and lowers it. “You do _not_ get to pin this on your mother and I. We have been nothing but _loving_ parents to you—”  
  
“Then why did you send me away?” Tim’s voice has risen to a shout, and he knows he’s long past toeing the line of his father’s patience, but he’s spent so long shoving these words down that now that he’s letting his grip on them slip, they’re all bubbling out at once. “Why did you leave me behind every fucking chance you got? Why did you decide it would be a better idea to spend Christmas in Portugal than with your own _son?_ ”  
  
The words might as well be a strike and he knows he’ll regret them later, but Tim isn’t finished yet. “Has it ever occurred to you that maybe the reason I became Robin was because I wanted to _matter_ to someone for once? That I wanted to feel, for the first time in my life, like I wasn’t some stupid kid you could shove to the side whenever I wasn’t useful anymore?”  
  
“So you’re telling me,” Jack says, eyes glinting sharp as blades, “that you decided to risk your life following a madman because you didn’t get enough _attention_ as a kid? Do you have any idea how psychotic that is?”  
  
“I didn’t do it for me!”  
  
“Then who was it for, Tim? Because it sure as hell wasn’t for me, or your mother, or any of those other schmucks Wayne hypnotized into following his deluded mission.”  
  
“I did it because I was _needed,_ Dad. That’s something you can understand, right? Bruce needed a Robin, I was there to fill the role, and I haven’t regretted it for a single day since.”  
  
“You damn well should regret it!”  
  
“Why? Because I got hurt?” Tim spreads his arms, letting Jack take in every scar, every mark, every memory. “Every single one of these scars is a life I’ve saved. I’ve saved so many people over the years—more than you can even comprehend—and you think that’s something I should _regret?”_  
  
Jack throws his hands in the air. “Jesus Christ, Tim, would you look at yourself? You look like a human pincushion!”  
  
“Yeah, and I’m still here!” Tim realizes that his own hands have balled into fists on instinct and forces them to loosen. He lowers his voice, holding back the wave of anger that threatens to break through. “I’m good at what I do, Dad. I saved people every damn night, and if I had to get a few scrapes along the way to do it, then I don’t regret that one bit.”  
  
Jack just shakes his head, and Tim realizes that he might as well be talking to a brick wall. His dad will never understand his life—will never understand _Tim_ —because as far as he’s concerned, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter that his own son was a hero. It doesn’t matter that Jack has let Tim down time and time again, but Bruce always stuck by his side. It doesn’t matter that Tim has just lost the _one good thing_ he had going for him, and he has no idea what he’s going to do now that it’s gone.  
  
None of that matters to Jack now, and Tim doesn’t know that it ever will.  
  
“You don’t know what you’re saying,” Jack says finally, forcing his voice into an even tone. “And I’m done talking about this with you until you’re ready to behave like an adult. Now get dressed, and don’t you _ever_ let your stepmother see that.” He nods toward Tim’s body like it’s something offensive. “We’re having a movie night.”  
  
Tim would rather fight one-on-one with Lady Shiva than spend another minute in the same room as his father. “I was actually going to head to bed—”  
  
“Downstairs, ten minutes,” Jack snaps. “That’s an order.” With that, he turns around and slams the door on his way out, which cracks through the air like a gunshot. Then silence.  
  
Tim sighs and goes to put on a clean shirt, covering his scars once more.

**Author's Note:**

> Comment and tell me what you'd rather eat: strawberry yogurt spread over deli ham and rolled up like sushi, or a pickle dipped in grape jelly and rolled in fish stick dust? 
> 
> [Feel free to mosey on down to my Tumblr!](http://sohotthateveryonedied.tumblr.com/)


End file.
